Ascension Road
by Deadborder
Summary: A simple visit to a doctor for a medical checkup, some precision driving, a call from a plumber and a chat with a friendly government agent. What could possibly go wrong?


**Samantha**

**Taurus**

**Hyades Cluster, Taurian Concordat**

**21 March 3072**

When the Mimetic Badarses had landed another job along the Concordat-Fedsuns border, a lot of its members had groaned. They seemed to spend a lot of their time there, and certainly for many neither the Outback or the Concordat held much appeal. Elezha Karoly, on the other hand, didn't mind at all. This didn't come as a surprise to many as she rarely voiced her opinion on anything, preferring to instead stay quiet, rarely interact with other people and instead do freaky things with computers and her arm.

It was an air that she'd worked hard to cultivate. It had mostly worked, as most of the Badarses simply chose to ignore her and leave her be, rather then wince as she pulled another device out of her arm. The exception was Reg K. Lewis, who seemed to be fascinated by her, and constantly bombarded her with inane banter and questions about her past and origins. She'd sat through several of his theories about her, and taken an inner delight in just how wrong he was.

So when she'd exercised a contract clause that allowed her a month's sudden leave to travel to Taurus, nobody had actually questioned her motivations or reason, which was good. However, instead, Towne had assigned somebody to "look after her" in case anyone tried anything. Her protestations of her own ability to look after herself had come to naught, with Towne explaining that she was too valuable an asset to risk loosing.

Towne, Elezha had figured, had suspicions about her. The assignment of a bodyguard was not so much to look after her but more to try and find out more about her past and background. Elezha knew that Towne was determined to find out as much about her background and her goals for ascension as possible, something that she had no intention of sharing.

And then her fears had been allayed when she saw who her assigned 'bodyguard' was. Lynne Street James, a technician and rarely combatant. From a world somewhere in the deep periphery, Lynne was a semi-literate idiot savant who's interests were largely limited to driving cars and getting drunk. Oh, she was a skilled technician, no questions asked. However, as a spy, she was completely worthless.

The only reason that Elezha could see that Lynn would be assigned to her was simply so she could inspect her augmentations from a technician's point of view. In past, Lynne had offered to do checkups on her arm. Elezha had politely refused, partially out of concerns of secrecy, but mainly out of the fact that she simply didn't want Lynn drunkenly messing with her delicate systems. Anyone could be forgiven for that.

So in the end she'd made her trip to Taurus with company. It wasn't that much of a problem in the end. All she really wanted to do could be covered in a single day, and Lynne could be quietly occupied while she did it.

"So yer sure ya don't want me to wait for ya?" Lynne asked as she pulled their car up at the kerb. They were in the suburbs of Samantha, far from the bustling heart of the Concordat's capitol. "It ain't no problem"

"It's fine, really." She replied. "I'm going to see the doctor and it's just going to take a while. Like I said, Lynne, I don't want you to spend all day sitting in a waiting room and being bored on my account. Go out, see some sights and have a good time. I'll be probably done by four, but I'll call you if I'll be late."

Besides, there was a certain degree of simply not wanting to be seen with Lynn in the suggestion. When her augmentations were hidden, Elezha was a rather unremarkable person. Average height and build, she might be considered attractive, but not exceptionally such. Brown eyes and shoulder-length light brown hair worked with her features to make her not the most noticeable person in the world.

By comparison, Lynne with her elaborate tattoos and tendency to dress like she just robbed a charity bin couldn't help but stand out. That she was incredibly loud, had a pronounced accent that made her sound like she was from the FedSuns outback and a tendency to talk for no real reason meant that some times she seemed to deliberately draw attention.

"So why in the heck do you go to a doc here?" Lynn asked. "There's plenty of doctors in the rest of the universe."

"I'm here to see friends so I might as well get my annual checkup while I have downtime. Besides, I've been to Doctor Pogata before." Elezha offered. "He at least knows I have an artificial arm, so there's no issues there."

"Y'all lived on Taurus before?"

"I did for a few years." Elezha offered. It was a blatant lie, but Lynne seemed not to notice or care. Certainly she hadn't spotted any of the big holes in her excuses thus far.

"Well, I guess if y'all are fine with that." Lynn shrugged. "May as well then. But give us a holler if y'all need it."

"Sure." She replied with no conviction whatsoever before getting out of the rented car. Leaving Lynne behind (but making sure that she had pulled away before proceeding), she headed into an office building on the main street. Not even bothering to look at the directory, she simply made for the Medical Centre on the ground floor.

"Katrina Velosky." She began at the reception desk. "Here to see Doctor Pogata."

"Of course." The receptionist replied without even looking up once. "Have a seat and he'll be with you shortly."

Outside, Lynn had circled the block three times, getting a good look at the office building where the medical centre was and its surroundings. Satisfied she had look at its layout and all the exits, she then drove off to look for a second-hand clothes store, her car radio blaring horrible Capellan Pop to anyone unfortunate enough to get close to it.

Dr Pogata closed the door to his office, nodding at his patient as he locked it from the inside. "Glad you could make it, Elezha." He stated as he walked over to his supply cupboard.

"I almost didn't." She shot back. "I was assigned a watcher. Fortunately, for me, they're not that smart."

"Good to know. The authorities have been rather… noisy of late." He commented as he opened the cupboard and began pulling out supplies, stacking them on his desk. "While I don't think they suspect me directly, there have been quiet crackdowns on some of our members."

"They always fear what they do not understand." She muttered.

"Indeed. Although I have reason to suspect that those… things are involved." He stated.

Elezha couldn't help but shudder at the memory of her own encounter with a Manei Domeni soldier. The Word of Blake's monstrosities represented the antithesis of everything she believed in, everything she had hoped to gain. The way that the Word used them only served to underline their debasement. Rather then aiming for ascendance as she was, they instead unleashed their creatures for violence and carnage. The damage that they did to her cause by simply existing was incalculable.

"That is why we must act." Pogata finished as he removed the base of the cupboard. "I'm glad you came when you did. Things are moving a lot faster then we had hoped for."

He stepped into the cupboard, climbing down the ladder that had been concealed under the floor. Waiting for him to reach the bottom, Elezha followed him, reaching a large room under the rest of the building. Its bare concrete walls and exposed piping suggested that it had been a part of the original basement of the building before being sealed off for its own purposes.

The rest of the room, however, suggested that its purpose was anything but its original architects plans. The walls were lined with a mixture of surgical equipment and storage lockers, all secured by electronic locks. A biological waste container was rather conspicuous by one side of the room, while the centre of it was dominated by what looked like an incredibly sophisticated surgical bed, with innumerable instruments looming over it.

"Very impressive." Elezha was genuinely impressed by the setup. "This looks like the latest in Canopian equipment to me."

"It is." Julio nodded. "We own the building, so it was easy to get this much of the basement repurposed to our needs."

"And all funded by the Taurian taxpayer." She finished as she began to unbutton her shirt. "So is the situation really as bad as it seems?"

Julio walked over to a control console as she undressed, checking several displays. "You may be the last through here. Things are moving a lot faster then we had hoped for. They're getting ready to make their move at Burton."

"I see." She immediately knew what he meant, and considered the implication of his words. Stripped down to her underwear, she lay on the table. "I assume, then, that whatever you have is important?"

"A comprehensive systems upgrade." He stated. "With what may be to come, I have to make this last as long as possible."

"I understand. No sense in waiting then."

Lynn continued to drum on the steering wheel as she listened to the Wind Up Fire Breathing Plastic Nuns greatest hits album on her headphones. She'd been working her way through her collection of music (something that Sandra had once described as "clearly assembled by someone who was raised by apes") for most of the day while watching the office.

It had been pretty simple; watch the place for an hour, drive around the block a few times and come back. Even a trained monkey could have done it. Few people tended to notice compact sedans, especially the cheap ones that were common rental choices. Besides, if anyone was watching, they'd be focusing on the office, not on the traffic.

She, on the other hand, was watching the watchmen. There were several cars, the sort of unmarked black sedan that government spooks favoured, lurking around the place. She'd paid careful attention to them, noting the consistency of their position and formation that indicated that they were clearly watching the place. They'd arrived at some point after she'd dropped Elezha off, and had been content to wait there all day.

Lynn finished off the last of her slurpee, throwing the empty drink in the garbage bag, one that was rapidly filling up with junk food debris. Belching to herself, she casually patted her bare midriff, wondering how much crap she'd shovelled today. With a sigh, she checked her watch – still three twenty, so at least forty minutes before Elezha would be finished.

As she went back to bashing on the steering wheel with no sense of rhythm or style, something caught her eye. A black panel van pulled up next to one of the sedans, exactly the sort of thing that screamed "police team inside". Glancing around, she could see several more vans around the side and back of the building. Not good.

Killing the sound system in the middle of _Monkey Destruct Button _(never an easy choice to make), she reached for her personal communicator. She quickly punched in Elezha's code, only to be greeted with a factory-standard automated message bank. Killing it, she instead went for the super-secret communicator that she knew that Elezha had built into some place on her body and was only to be used in the advent of an emergency. It came up dead. Very not good.

The time for sitting around and picking her nose was over. She had to move now, or else risk losing her charge. Glancing around, she reached for the garbage bag she'd stashed in the back seat.

Ten minutes later, Lynn had changed and walked around the block as not to appear to have come straight from the car. Now she was clad in a grease-stained blue jumpsuit and cap, her long hair tied back into a sloppy bun and her tattooed arms entirely hidden by long sleeves. In one hand she carried a toolbox, in the other, her personal datapad.

Barging into the office building, she walked up to the reception desk of the medical centre. "Can I help you?" The receptionist asked, looking up at her with more or less complete indifference.

"Alice Unseen Uni, department of public works." She briefly flashed the woman an ID card. It was actually her driver's licence, but she made sure to obscure it. "Look, this is kinda an emergency, but I think you want to keep it quiet. Sure as heck as I want to."

"What is it?" She hissed.

"Department of public works has found a shoddy sewerage pipe link going right under this place. And there's a blockage building up that's gonna burst if I don't get to it right now." She spoke quietly but urgently.

"But I don't-"

"Lady, If I don't get to it now, this place is gonna be flooded in poop. And you don't want that, do you?"

"Well I-"

"Y'see, I need to get in there right now, okay? Because this is big, and I mean really big. We're talking about a major sewerage artery for the whole city."

"I should call-"

"Oh yeah, you can call all right. And while yer on hold, there's gonna be an explosion that'll flood this whole city block. And then I'll have to put on my report that I wasn't able to do my job because some receptionist wouldn't let me in."

"But then-"

"And then you know what? Not only is yer name gonna be crap very literally, but you'll have a zillion people crawling down your throat armed with lawsuits over mental distress and damaged property and whatever else comes from being inundated with poo, then sure. But if you don't, yer gonna let me in right now."

"sure" she squeaked, clearly defeated, getting up from behind her desk.

The pair of them walked down the hallway, Lynne studying her datapad as she went. She'd claimed it was a plan of the sewers. In fact, it was a diagram of the coolant system on an _Awesome, _but it looked the part. Glancing up, she saw the name on one of the doors. _Dr J Pogata_

"This is it." She said, then tried the door. "Locked. You got a key?"

"Dr Pogata is seeing a patient, and I don't think-"

"Poosplosion, lady. Now you gonna let me in or not?"

"Right away!" She fumbled with the keys before eventually overriding the lock.

"Right. Now get out the front and act normal, like I'm not here. But if y'all here some strange rumbling noises, sound the alarm and get the hell out."

"Hey Elehza!" Lynn called out as she climbed down the ladder. "You better-" She stopped and turned. "Well that's just plain freaky."

Elehza was propped up on a surgical table, clad in only her underwear. What was more noticeably missing was her _limbs; _the ends of both arms and both legs were capped with some sort of metal plug, which was, in turn, connected to cabling that lead off the table… and onto four limbs that were on a different table nearby, each one of them with various open panels.

"Oh wow. That is just bizarre." She was at a loss for words, something that did not happen very often. So she just stood there, blinking. "Yeah, freakiest thing I ever did see." Lynn knew about Elezha's arm. She had suspected that the woman had other artificial augmentations. But seeing her lying there, dismembered and strangely casual about it? That was definitely too weird for words.

"Who are you?" A man yelled back at Lynn. He was in his forties, she figured, with thinning black hair and sharp features. "What are you doing in here?"

"Lynn, what are you doing here?" Elezha snapped, clearly angry and, despite being near-naked and dismembered, the anger was directed at Lynn.

"You know her?" He asked, his voice clearly nervous.

The cyborg nodded back, glaring at Lynn. "I work with her. She was sent here as my 'bodyguard', but I gave her explicit orders to stay outside."

"Well she's seen us and seen this place." He looked around, clearly apprehensive. "What should we do?"

"Okay, I have no idea what in the heck is goin' on down here." Lynn cut in. "But there's a huge bucha blatant government man-styled black sedans millin' about this place, and they've been watchin' this place fer ages. An' now a buncha black government-man style minivans have pulled up outside. So I'd say that yer about to get a buncha unwanted visitors."

Elehza glanced at the man, who had a worried look on his face. "They shouldn't know about what we're doing here. They can't know." He stammered out. "We made sure that nobody outside of our group knew about it, we vetted the construction crews, we..." He shook his head.

"The fact is that they do seem to." Elezha replied, her voice rather clam in contrast to his growing panic. "And they have decided to act on our presence here. We are out of options, Doctor Pogata. We have to leave now."

"Right. Yes, leave now. Good plan." He glanced back at her, then to the table. "I can attach your new limbs now, but the calibration isn't entirely finished. You may be clumsy and uncoordinated."

"Well, that's better then bein' limbless an' stuck on a table when the government men come." Lynn cut in. "So I'd take it."

"Point. Very well then." Elehza sized Lynn up. "Right. Watch the door. Pogata, get my limbs on now. We go with what we have."

The doctor nodded, dashing over to a console where he began feverishly hammering buttons and glancing at displays. "This will not be pretty, Elezha-"

"Just do it. I'm embarrassed enough as it is." She lay back on the table, sighing. "Damn them. They should not have found us this easily."

"Maybe we got complacent." She shot back. "We were so focused on Burton that we began to overlook everything else."

Lynn was amazed at how clam she seemed, given all that was going on. She personally knew that if she was near-naked, limbless and someone had burst into the room with a gun and began shouting stuff about government goons bursting in, she'd be panicking.

"So were you watching out for them all this time?" Elezha asked.

"Yep"

"Why?" She was clearly surprised

"'cause I'm yer bodyguard. An' that's what I do." She turned back to the entrance ladder, a determined look on her face and a pistol in her hand. Agonisingly long minutes passed, quiet save for the sounds of Doctor Pogata hard at work on reassembling Elezha. She didn't want to think about what was going on, instead focusing on the threats that were outside, and considering her escape options.

And then she heard something. Somebody shouting, the sounds of booted feet overhead. "They're coming!" Lynn called out. Glancing back towards the operating table.

Elezha was sitting up, all four limbs attached. "I am as ready as I will ever be, I suppose." She commented, as if being dismembered happened every day of the week.

"Good. There another way outa this place?" She glanced around listening intently. Whoever was upstairs would find their way down here very, very quickly.

"Yes. There's a second exit for emergencies." Pogata stammered. "It goes out to the rear of the building."

"Good." She glanced around. There was a sound of thumping against the door upstairs; the Taurians were trying to get into Pogata's office.

"Activate the contingency Virus." Elezha commanded as she dressed. "Leave nothing for them."

"But my equipment-"

"Will betray too much information." She cut him off as she walked across the room. "The virus will destroy all your data, all you have on us. That way, while we lose the equipment, they gain nothing from it."

"Of course." He nodded, clearly distressed. "I'll input the protocols, and then get us out of here."

They closed the exit only moments before the Taurian agents came in. As they headed into the passage, they could hear the sounds of footfalls inside the lab, and desperate searching for any signs of its inhabitants. Elehza was under no illusions that the exit was invisible; she knew it was merely a matter of time before someone found it and followed them.

The exit took them through an underground passage, leading up to the surface. From what Pogata had said, they were coming out at a different building, nearby the one they had been under. Of course, from what Lynn had said, there was every chance that the Taurian security forces would be surrounding the area and, if not watching this door, would have someone nearby.

They'd traded certain capture for a tightening noose. It was an improvement, but still not much of one.

Lynn was in the lead; she cautiously opened the door a crack, peering out from within to see what was going in. Elezha craned her neck around to try and get her own assessment of the situation; while Lynn had shown an array of skills and a degree of initiative that she'd never thought the tech possessed, she was still was leery of trusting her too much.

"Well?" Pogata asked, his voice a nervous whisper. "It should lead out to a small carpark out the back of several buildings."

"Yup." Lynn drawled back. "We got one obvious government man sedan at the end of the park, and odds are on they're lookin' fer you an' Elezha. Dunno if they're lookin fer me though. Couple of other cars parked around the place too. Hmm…" Her eyes narrowed, and she furrowed her forehead as if deep in thought. "Man, I could use a beer 'bout now."

"Something up?" Elezha asked.

"Yeah. I dunno my local gangs that well, but there's an' older-model groundcar there what's painted up all fancy like." She explained "Yellow and purple with lots of trim and crap like that. Guy sitting by it too wearin' all the same colours. Now to me, that screams gang guy."

"Seems reasonable. So we know that there are two threats out there." Elezha finished. "But maybe if we stole one of the cars, we would have a getaway option… You can hotwire a groundcar, right?"

Lynn snorted derisively. "Upside down, under water an' in my sleep."

"Right. How's this for an idea then. You steal one of the cars, get it back here, pick us up then we find a way out of here."

"I have a small shuttle at a private airfield out of town." Pogoata stated. "It's owned by a shell company, but I know it should be secure."

"That works." Elezha stated. "We came in on an affiliate jumpship. Unless the TMI are even more paranoid then I gave them credit for – and that is a lot of paranoia, mind you – then they won't have locked that ship down. Plus its Capellan-registered, so that should flag as 'safe' to them"

"Right. So y'all want me to lift a car for ya. Got it." She nodded to herself, then glanced outside. "Right, I got this. Y'all just sit tight an' I'll be back in a sec."

She stepped outside of the door, closing it behind her. "Can we trust her?" Pogata stammered out.

"I would say so." Elezha offered, admittedly uncertain about Lynn's abilities. She knew that Lynn could steal a car, that wasn't the problem. What she was uncertain about was her ability to act in a rational way. After all, Lynn was a technician, not a field agent. She was a technical non-combatant. And while she could throw a mean kick, Lynn had no experience in any sort of covert ops or counterintelligence operation like this one.

Her concentration was thrown by the sound of shouting, then the roar of engines and a screeching of tyres. Seconds later, she heard a cacophony that could crudely be called music by the door.

"Get in! Now!" Lynn called out. Nodding to Pogata, she kicked open the door, only to be shocked by what she saw outside. Lynn was in the gang car, its previous owner lying unconscious on the4 ground nearby.

"Lynn, what sort of a moron are you?" She shouted out.

"No time to argue, get in now!" Lynn shot back.

Seeing no other option, she grabbed Pogata and all but threw him into the car, then climbed in after him. Inside the car the stereo was blaring out what she instantly recognised as Vandenburg Retro Hip-Hop, a style that was popular amongst the young urban crowd who felt that all listening to the same style of music was a form of rebellion. "I said don't take this car, Lynn!"

"I gotta plan! Now hang on tight!" She shouted out, then threw the car into reverse.

"What are-" She protested, but was cut off as the car hit something, throwing her and Pogata forward. Glancing behind her, she could see what it was they'd hit, and her heart sank. Lynn had driven them into the side of one of the TMI sedans.

Before she could say anything else, Lynn leaned out her window, a pistol in hand. "Eat lead, fascist pigs!" She yelled out, squeezing off several shots into the side of the car. Just as quickly, she pulled herself in, then accelerated away from the sedan.

"Are you completely insane?" Elezha yelled out, Pogata all but cowering in the seat next to her. "You just shot up a TMI sedan in a stupidly distinctive car! They're going to be all over us!"

"Yep." Lynn drawled back. Behind the car, a suited agent had clambered out of the sedan and was shouting into his communicator.

"They're going to-" She began, but was cut off as Lynn threw the car into a hard right, driving past another one of the parked sedans. Before Elezha's unbelieving eyes, she pulled out her gun and fired several shots into the car. "What are you doing?"

"Escalatin' the situation." Lynn stated. "Now hold on!" She floored the car, heading into the traffic at breakneck speeds. "Here, hold this. I gotta make a call." She all but threw the gun to Elezha, who scrambled to catch the weapon.

"What-" The car weaved around another vehicle, throwing her and Pogata across the back.

"May wanna belt up." Lynn commented as she opened up a personal communicator, one hand on the wheel. "I'ma gonan be makin a call."

"Call?" She asked, glancing behind them for a second. One of the sedans that Lynn had shot up was chasing after them. "What is going through that tiny little brain of yours?"

"Hold on a sec." Lynn commented. "Yeah, Jimbo? Yeah, this obviously ain't Mac. I grabbed his phone as fast as I could after the cops laid into him. I got him with me, but he's in a bad way." Her voice suggested that she was frightened, a stark contrast to her almost suicidal confidence she was displaying in her driving skills.

"Well I dunno! There were all these black sedans around and then some suits jumped out of them and then laid into Mac big time! I was able to get him into the car and then the crazies started shootin' at us! No I don't know why, but there's one of them after us now, an' I think he wants me dead!"

Lynn shot through an intersection against the traffic, the car only narrowly avoiding being crushed by a truck. "Yeah, look I'm in Jersey heights, headin' south on Angus boulevard. An' –" A shot struck the back of the car, shattering the rear window. "Crap, they're shootin' at us! Get everyone now! They're coming fer us!"

Closing the phone, she returned to her driving, throwing the car into a sharp turn before cutting across a parking lot. Behind them, the black sedan pulled a lazier turn, ducking behind a van before emerging to continue the chase.

"Lynn, what the hell have you just done?" She demanded.

"Well, if I done it right, I jus' started a war between a street gang and the government men." She stated as she pulled the car around another sharp turn.

"I noticed that much. The question is, why, you idiot?"

A third sharp turn saw the car skid into an alleyway that was only barely wide enough for it. Behind them, the black sedan tried to follow, only to end up slamming one side into the wall. As they pulled out and turned onto the next street, Elezha could see an agent on their communicator, probably calling for backup.

"'cause now the suits are gonna be looking for a gang car while dealin' with a city load of angry, shooty types. Which gives us a chance to find a nice, anonymous car while they're distracted an' sneak our way outa here while they deal with the buncha crap that's jus' blown up in their faces."

Lynn's plan had proven to be surprisingly sound in the face of its sheer insanity. They'd dumped the gang car and instead picked up an anonymous white suburban compact which suited their needs rather well. It had been chosen for its low profile rather then its performance; the vehicle was fine for navigating city streets but, if pursued, would have been pretty much worthless.

Making their way through the city following the route that Pogata had given them, they'd been simply driving casual, acting like they were common or garden citizens going about their business rather than fugitives. It had worked, not only had they not drawn any attention, but more importantly, they hadn't had a single encounter with the agents and their black sedans as they made their way through Samantha's streets.

Listening to the car's radio explained why; there were reports of outbreaks of gang violence across the city and clashes with police. The result was a tying up of resources in dealing with these outbursts which, in turn, meant that the assets that should have been looking for them were otherwise occupied. And, Elezha figured, the TMI would now be searching for a gang connection to her people – one that didn't exist, but they would need to invest time and resources to eventually reach that conclusion.

Of course, they weren't out of the woods by any means. They'd escaped the immediate trap, but they were still on Taurus. To Elezha, their number one priority had to be to get off-world. Nothing else mattered now, not even the rest of her people on-world. If they did not escape to warn the others, then all they had worked for over countless decades would be lost.

However, by no means would that be easy. By now, the TMI would have likely passed along Pogata's picture to every airport and spaceport on world, and possibly hers as well. They'd definitely be watching out, which made escaping via a commercial flight near impossible.

That left Pogata's private shuttle; the three of them had agreed that it was the best option. Once off-planet (and assuming that they didn't get shot down by the TDF, but she wasn't going to say that out loud) they could make a break for the Jumpship they'd used to get in-system. Ironically, the navigational hazards of the Taurus system were less of a threat then the men on the ground – after all, while she pretended to be an infantryman, she _belonged _in space.

For his part, Pogata had managed to get over his cowering and burbling once Lynn had stopped driving like a maniac. She couldn't say that she blamed him; he probably had never seen real combat of any sort before. That, despite is dedication to the cause, he was still a baseline rather then an Ascendant like her didn't help him any. Elezha could shrug off injuries that would kill or maim a normal person, while he couldn't. Lynn herself couldn't either, but she seemed to be unaffected by their situation. Apparently, she was either fearless or simply too stupid to be afraid. Possibly a mixture of both.

At any rate, he'd been directing Lynn from the passenger seat of the groundcar, while she'd been content to remain in the back, considering matters. The full implications of this attack were what bothered her. She wanted to know just how wide a net the TMI was casting. Was it just Samantha, or was it Taurus or was it the whole Concordat? Were they looking in the Protectorate? Or the abandoned systems? Or those systems that were supposedly uninhabited?

Putting it aside, she concentrated more on the matter at hand. "If they found you, Pogata, then odds are they know about your personal shuttle. Figuring on typical TMI responses, they'll have cordoned off the site and will be trying to make sure nobody gets in." She glanced over the empty countryside around the car. "We'll have to figure a way around them and getting onto there."

"Hopefully the mess we caused back there will mean that they're a might distracted" Lynn shot back. "I figure that with a sudden gang war on their hands, they won't have too much more then a token security force. 'course, there's only three of us and we have a single gun an' no battlesuit fer ya. And heck, I ain't a soldier and I suspect you ain't either, Doc."

"Uh, no." Pogata admitted.

"An' while yer full of amazing robot parts, I doubt you've got anything that would help us massacre a whole squad of guys at once."

"No." She stated, an angry tone in her voice. To say that what Lynn had just suggested was abhorrent to her would be an understatement. The last thing she would turn herself into would be a weapon. Her goal was ascension to transcend the human form, and not to debase herself like those _creatures _had.

"Didn't think so." Lynn furrowed her brow, and began glancing around the car, as if staring off at some unseeable object, rather then watching the road.

"Do you have an idea?" Elezha asked.

"No, but I'm pretty sure I'll think of somethin' by the time we get there." She replied.

For some reason, that was far from reassuring.

When Agent Berk had joined the TMI, he'd been expecting a life of danger, action, excitement and intrigue. He'd been expecting to travel to exotic worlds, meet beautiful women and put his life on the line in the name of his beloved Concordat. He was a man of danger, action and intrigue, one who would be a deadly enigma to his enemies and a hero of his people – albeit one who would never be publicly recognised due to the nature of his work.

What he hadn't expected was to end up standing around in a paved-over sheep paddock, guarding a rusty KR-61 shuttle from the nearby livestock for twelve hours.

"This sucks." He muttered under his breath. A sheep bleating in the distance seemed to agree with him.

"Shut it, Berk." Agent Wells replied. "We have a job, and you had better damn well do it."

"Yeah, yeah." He muttered. They'd been dropped out here to seize the shuttle. After years of low-key desk duty, Berk had been hoping this was his shot at the big time. He'd be on the front lines, protecting the Concordat against its enemies. On the flight in, his mind had already begun to concoct scenarios of a sneaky infiltration turning into a heroic gunfight and finally his own daring disabling the shuttle seconds before it launched.

Instead, the only resistance had been an elderly guard dog who had been tranquilised by someone else. And since then, he'd been standing around doing nothing waiting for something to happen. Anything. That they'd gotten reports from Samantha that there was some sort of gang war erupting only made it worse. His comrades in arms were fighting for their lives without him, facing off against deadly foes intent on destroying their beloved nation.

And he was stuck watching the sheep. It was cold, it was dark, it was the middle of the night and he was bored silly.

However, providence seemed to smile on him. In the distance, he could see a car approaching, its headlights making it stand out in the pre-dawn gloom. It seemed that things were not going to be so dull after all. Clearly, this car represented a security breach, one that would need to be dealt with. And agent Berk was the man to deal with. Already he could see it; how he would single-handedly stop these attackers and save this vital operation from sabotage.

Instead, the car stopped well short of him before he could even shout out a warning. A pair of figures stepped out, barely visible in the darkness, then pulled a third one out between them. "Halt!" he finally called out. "This is restricted property!"

"Stand down, trooper." One of the figures, a woman, began. "We're from TMI, here to take possession of this craft."

He edged closer to them. As he did, he could make them out a bit more; between the darkness and the contrast from their car's lights, they were rather indistinct. He could tell that two of them were women, while the third, the one who'd been dragged from the car, was a man. "Agent Berk, TMI." He stated.

"Agent Petra Brock, Bureau of Analysis." The woman stated, flashing him an ID card. He could barely see it, let alone her. "This is agent Allaine Moffat." Before he had a chance to examine the card, she had pocketed it again.

"We captured this suspect trying to escape." Moffat spoke up. Glancing at her, he could see that the pair of them were both clad in black suits, the type that was preferred by intelligence agents everywhere. "Our raid revealed that he'd wiped his computer files down to the memory cores. However, we also found out that he had backups hidden in the shuttles' systems."

Burk had heard this much after the initial raid had gone off; the suspects had escaped, presumably through a hidden exit. Then everything had gone to hell in Samantha, which had apparently allowed the suspects to slip through their grasp – and was why Burk was out here in this sheep paddock. "Why didn't I hear about the capture?" He demanded, suddenly wary.

"They have been jamming our communications." Moffat stated. "We don't know how. We're hoping that this creep will tell us, or at the very least, we'll find the source in his files."

He hadn't heard anything about this either. "Let me call it in."

"Sure. Won't do you any good." Moffat finished, an almost mocking tone in her voice.

"I'll be the judge of that." He muttered as he picked up his communicator. Berk didn't like the BoA guys, and he was far from the only one. Many saw them as over-paid desk jockeys who got cushy jobs sorting intel while others did the actual hard work. He certainly didn't like them marching into his operation and telling him what to do.

He opened his communicator and activated it, only to be greeted with a screech of white noise. "See what I mean?" Moffat spoke up. "It's been like that for hours."

"I should have heard something sooner." He stated. Last report was over twelve hours old, and that was simply an order to stand their ground.

Moffat gave a derisive snort. "Like this place is even important."

"So you stand around all night an' mess with us, or jus' let us do our jobs?" Brock took over. "I mean, I dun' know about y'all, but I dun' wanna spend forever standin' around here freezin' my arse off. But the sooner we get this over an' done with, sooner the lot of us can get outa this miserable sheep paddock."

Which was good enough for him. "Right, let's go." He stated. "I don't want to be here any longer then you do. Of course, I'll have to come with you."

"Understandable." Brock finished. "Yer a credit to your team, agent."

"I am?" He spoke up as the four of them walked towards the shuttle.

"Definitely." She stated. "You've been givin' us all the due diligence that you should have, and are willing to cooperate and use your own initiative an' stuff rather than wait around forever for a call that may never come." She gestured towards their prisoner. "Come on, open it up."

"Thanks." Burk nodded. "I just do what I need to for the Concordat. I'm just an ordinary hero, that's all."

"I'm just glad that we met you. It's been a pretty tryin' day." She finished as the shuttle's hatch opened up. "I think we all want this to be over."

The four of them clambered into the shuttle, its interior lights coming on as they moved in through the hatch and into the cockpit. "Get to work. We don't have all day." Moffat snapped at the prisoner. "And don't try anything funny. There's three of us, remember."

The man nodded nervously, then sat down at the communications console. Watching him for whole seconds, Burk instead turned his eyes to the two female agents. They weren't bad looking, he figured. True, Brock looked a little rough and certainly needed to wash her hair more often, but it seemed to only add to her look.

He let his eyes wander across their bodies. Both of them were wearing basic black suits, the types that he'd seen plenty of times before. However, looking closer at her, he couldn't notice that Brock's suit seemed to be a match for her face and hair; it was rumpled, creased and more then a little frayed. It looked like she'd just walked out of a car crash, or maybe stolen the suit from a second hand shop. Glancing over at Moffat, he couldn't help but notice that her suit was in similar shape.

"Hey!" He called out. "What are-"

Unfortunately for Burk, he'd failed to notice the thick-soled army boots that Brock was wearing which would have been a dead giveaway. Certainly he didn't see it before it collided with his face, sole-first.

The agents on the ground got something of a warning of what was to come, when one of them heard the soft thud of Burk's unconscious body hitting the pavement. The first person to come over heard the sound of the KR-61 shuttle's hatch closing, and then, seconds later, the whine of the engines igniting. Realising what was happening, all they could do was scurry away like ants, one of them carrying Burk with them.

Their fear was justifiable. Moments later, the engines whine reached fever pitch, roaring to life as they reached full power. The craft began rolling forwards, then surged to life, thundering down the ad-hoc runway. Nobody on the ground tried to stop it; those that weren't running new full well that they had no way to do such anyway. Instead, all they could do was watch as it leaped into the ear, soaring away into the pre-dawn blackness on a pillar of smoke and flames.

All bar one. A lone security officer turned away from watching the departing shuttle, instead opening his personal communicator. "This is Wells. Tell Ogel that the Ascendant has escaped."

It wasn't until they were well away from Taurus and had sent a tightbeam message to their jumpship that anyone onboard dared to speak. There had been a silent tension, an almost nervous apprehension as they had left, worried that they would be intercepted. However, with each second they got further and further from the planet, those odds decreased. Safety seemed within their grasp, if not guaranteed.

Even then, Pogata seemed to be spending most of his time in the bathroom, nerves having taken their toll.

"Well woo-wee." Lynn finally called out as she glanced out the viewport. "Now that was a good plan o' mine."

"It was, wasn't it?" Elezha commented. "And it was very lucky of us that you happened to have a pair of government official lookalike suits on hand."

She shrugged. "Seemed like a good idea to me. Figured I could use 'em if things looked bad." Lynn glanced back at the cyborg. "'sides, wouldn't have worked without that noisemaker thingamajig y'all have in ya arm."

"Like you, I seem to believe in being prepared." She stated. "Which is interesting, really. You almost were expecting that something would happen, weren't you?"

"Me? Heck no. I jus' was doin' my job as yer bodyguard, that's all." Lynn seemed to be remarkably casual. "I was jus' makin' sure that my charge was protected, that's all. Felt like takin' some precautions an' stuff so I could do what Levisha told me to."

Elezha's eyes narrowed as she studied her. "And yet, Levisha was the one who found you."

"Yeah, but you were there at the time too." Lynn countered.

"Though I missed the initial contact." She skewed her head, sizing Lynn up. "Who are you, Lynne Street James?"

"Depends." Lynn finished with a grin. "Who are you?"


End file.
